Operating devices for illumination means, in particular LED converters, are known from the prior art and have an IC on a primary side and at least one IC on a secondary side, said ICs being DC-isolated from one another by an SELV barrier. The illumination means is electrically supplied on the secondary side, while the primary side can be supplied from a voltage supply, in particular a grid voltage.
It is often desirable that the primary-side and secondary-side circuits can communicate with one another. For this purpose, it is already known from the prior art that communication of this type across the SELV barrier is done by means of an optocoupler. Furthermore, it is known to communicate across DC isolation by means of a transformer.
However, the communication across the SELV barrier by means of an optocoupler or transformer, which is known from the prior art, places high demands on the components which bridge the SELV barrier, which in turn leads to high costs in manufacturing the operating devices.